


Homecoming is Cool, Coming Home is Cooler

by noumenon



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Lance is bad with emotions, OCs in the role of Lance's friends and family, Pidge is tired of their shit, Pre Season 2, keith is bad with emotions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 04:01:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9639929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noumenon/pseuds/noumenon
Summary: (Long before we got any info on season 2, I had this plot in my head and only managed to write a little bit, but now I've got time and I want to write it even though we already know what happened when they fell out of the wormhole.)The wormhole destabilized, and the last thing that crossed through Lance's mind before he was expelled into space was his family, and how badly he wanted to see them one last time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I had this idea MONTHS ago and started it but never finished it, but now I've got inspiration to keep working so here it is, after we learn where they actually ended up after season 1 but whatevs canon divergence bros
> 
> The title comes from a song that I really like, the song doesn't really fit but I thought the title did so I used it. [Here is the song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KLIq_F8Jdo) if anyone wants to listen. It's a rly good band okay

The wormhole was unstable, all the Lions fell out of the ship and were scattered. The last thing Lance thought about before getting ejected from the wormhole was how badly he wanted to see his family one last time.

Lance awoke to red lights blinking in his face. Blue had crashed, but he wasn’t sure where yet. It looked like Blue wasn’t fully functioning, and wherever he was he going to be stuck for a while. He could only hope that Hunk or Pidge was somewhere close enough to help fix up Blue or at least close enough to talk over comms and walk him through any repairs he’d need to start flying again. The Lions did seem to have some self-healing abilities; they didn’t usually need to do much in the way of repairs or recharging or anything like that, usually a little rest seemed to be enough for the Lions to be able to fly again. This didn’t look like that sort of situation, and Lance really needed to find someone else. He wasn’t sure how long he was out.

The main door opened up and Lance took a step outside. The light outside was so bright he needed a minute for his eyes to adjust, but once they did, he didn’t believe what he saw. The ocean. Sand and familiar flora. Palm trees, reeds, bushes. It was so similar to Earth it hurt.

“Hey.”

Lance turned quickly to the voice – Keith. Keith was standing right there, leaning against Blue. Red was about twenty yards off in the distance, on its side and looking even worse than Blue. Lance didn’t really think, he rushed over to Keith’s side and hugged him tightly.  
“Oh my god, someone else made it here! I don’t even care if it’s you and your stupid mullet!” Lance stopped for a second, then pushed Keith backwards. Without the support, Keith had trouble standing up and fell to his knees. “And forget that happened. I was just excited to see someone else made it here and even if it was you,” He stopped. “You look terrible, man.”

Keith leaned backwards and fell into a sitting position. “Head hurts.” He mumbled.

“Oh no no no that’s not good.” Lance sat down in front of him and took off Keith’s helmet. “Your eyes look nice – I mean like, they’re not messed up or anything. How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Jeez, I don’t have a concussion,” Keith pushed Lance’s hand away from his face. “I didn’t hit my head that hard. Red still manages to be a better pilot than you are while on autopilot. I’m just. Tired right now.”

Lance frowned. “Rude. I’m an amazing pilot and you know it, and Red wasn’t on autopilot, she was on auto-fall-to-the-ground-and-crash-horribly.” 

“Do you have any water?” Keith asked, ignoring Lance’s sarcasm.

“No I – ” Lance opened one of his satchels in hopes that Shiro or Coran snuck a snack or a drink into them when he wasn’t looking. There was nothing to drink, just his old cell phone that he still carried around just in case. For some reason, it was vibrating and ringing like crazy. The last time his phone had been like this was when he accidently texted his family’s group chat instead of his girlfriend but – his thought ended there. He opened the phone, eyes wide and hands shaking. He was barely able to push any buttons but he somehow managed and was able to see that he had two bars.

“Keith, buddy.” His voice was so low he was almost whispering.

“That doesn’t look like water, Lance. Stop playing games on your phone and – ”

“I think – I think we’re on Earth.” He spoke softly and was frozen in place as texts and missed call alerts continued popping up on his phone endlessly. He was afraid if he did anything too rash, moved too quickly, tried to open any of the messages, he might wake up and be far far away from home.

“What are you talking about?” Keith asked.

Lance showed him the screen of his phone, still keeping it at angle where he could see it too to make sure it was still real. “Look, I have signal. My phone coverage doesn’t exactly cover outer space so the only way I can be getting this is if we’re back on Earth.”

“Why would the wormhole bring us here?” Keith looked, maybe thinking a mission would pop up, something to justify coming to a place that didn’t need them.

“I – I don’t know. The last thing I thought about before we all fell was that, well, I really wanted to come home and now here I am.” Lance put his hand to his head and stared at his phone as the notifications started to slow down. “Keith, we’re home. We’re on Earth.”

Keith nodded. “Yeah, Earth.” He agreed. He was having trouble focusing on Lance’s words. He knew he should be feeling more than he was, but he couldn’t. He was tired and his head hurt and he was dizzy. ‘Maybe I do have a concussion.’ He thought. 

Lance opened his texts and looked through the last ones he received. The icon next to the texts from his mother said 99+ new messages. He opened it, he tried not to look at all the things she sent him over the past few months, it looks like she texted him every day. Updates on how the family was, how much they missed him, and how much she prayed for a miracle to bring him home.

“Lance.”

Lance looked up and rubbed his hand across his face; he hadn’t even realized he’d been crying. “What? Sorry, I just – ”

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m fine now.” Lance looked back at his phone and quickly typed ‘hey I heard you were looking for a miracle’. “I’m going to see my mom again, Keith.”

“Lance, you know we can’t stay here.”

Lance turned to glare at him, “Oh yeah? And where are we gonna go, huh? Back to Arus? Newsflash! We have no idea where that is! Are we going to meet up with Shiro? Do you know where he is? Because I sure as heck don’t!”

“Calm down, Lance I just meant,” Keith began.

Lance took in a deep breath and exhaled through flared nostrils. He looked down at his phone, which was telling him he had an incoming call. “I know. I know what you meant, Keith. I just don’t want to be reminded that we’re going to be leaving here soon, as soon as we can. Now shut up for five minutes, I need to talk to my mom.” Lance answered the phone and immediately moved it a foot away from his face and even Keith could hear the sound of a woman screaming and crying from where he was sitting. After the initial few moments of yelling Lance brought the phone back to his cheek.

“Mami!” Lance interjected. “Mami, I’m fine. I’m mostly fine – I know – I’m sorry! Please don’t cry – I need you to – Mami I can talk to them when I get home! – I need you to come pick me up!” He had trouble getting words in-between his mother’s frantic outbursts of worry and glee and anger. “No I don’t know where I am, I just – okay it’s a really long story – no, not a five minute over the phone story, I mean like a long long story, like it could be its own TV show, at least one season worth of story here mami – hold on – okay I texted you where we are, we’ll walk to the nearest road – I can’t believe we’re so close – Huh? – Oh yeah, it’s me and Keith – yes, that Keith – Hey! Mami please focus, who’s coming?” 

The conversation seemed to go on like that for a while, Keith found himself drifting in and out of focus. He tried to concentrate on the trees a few yards away but even that was difficult. Maybe he did have a concussion; that would certainly explain a lot, like why he was too tired to even feel much emotion about being back on Earth. It was probably better than being anxious or angry though, so he couldn’t find it in him to mind. 

“Lance.” He put his hand on his friend’s forearm. 

“My friend is in bad shape mami, he hit his head pretty hard. I need to go. – Yes, of course, - I love you.” Lance put his phone back in the pocket he took it out of. It started buzzing occasionally but Lance just ignored it. “How are you feeling?”

Keith slumped down and pulled his helmet over his eyes to block out the sun. “My head hurts, it feels like cotton.”

“Keith,” Lance snapped his fingers in front of Keith’s face when he didn’t immediately respond. “Come on dude, you gotta respond.”

“Don’t do that.” Keith pushed Lance’s hand away. “I just have a headache, it’s not Red Alert here.”

“It’s not just a headache, it’s a head injury. Huge difference, at least Yellow Alert, maybe even Orange Alert.”

“You just made those up.”

“Oh you got me, I guess that means you’re fine.” Lance rolled his eyes and hooked his arm around Keith’s torso and pulled him up to his feet. “I know you’re hurt, but we need to move. There’s a road three miles down. We’re so close to my house, it’s crazy. Barely an hour’s drive away, we gotta get to the road and my big bro is going to take us home.”

“How far from the desert do you think we are?” Keith asked.

“I don’t know. Really far away?”

“Then we need to get in our lions and go back to my place and see if we can find some way of boosting our comms, and hope the military doesn’t spot us. I don’t think they’ve noticed us crash, otherwise they would be here by now.”

“Or we can just like, put them in the water and go to my house which is only a few miles that way.” Lance pointed down the beach. 

“Your house?” Keith asked. He shook his head quickly, “What are you going to have that can help us?”

“Oh I don’t know, maybe food, a bed, other people? Plus you look like horrible and you’re probs concussed. You need rest.”

Keith sighed, “Fine, we can go there. But I don’t think hiding the Lions in the water is a great idea. Honestly, I’m not sure if we can hide them, or if we even need to. We look pretty well covered by foliage here.” There were some small trees and plenty of shrubbery around, and with the Lions half buried it didn’t look like someone could notice them unless they came out this way, which was unlikely. This wasn’t a part of the beach that tourists or locals came to. There was a factory a few miles away and the water here always had a weird green sheen and a bad smell.

“Fine, but just so we’re clear, my plan was overall awesome.” Lance said.

“Sure.” He was almost smiling. Lance liked it when Keith smiled, he didn’t do that nearly enough. Deciding not to waste the opportunity of a smiling Keith, Lance threw his arm around his shoulder and pulled him close for a selfie, which he immediately sent to every number on his contact list with the caption “guess who’s alive????”. 

Keith looked at the text and rolled his eyes. “Come on, let’s get a move on.” Keith shook off Lance’s arm, no longer smiling, and walked briskly down the beach in the direction Lance had pointed, trying to hide the limp that occurred as he walked, but the strained expression on his face made it clear he was in pain.

“Dude, you’re in no condition to be pushing yourself.” Lance grabbed Keith’s shoulder and slowed him down. “Take it easy, we’ll be there soon enough.”

Keith shrugged off Lance’s hand. “I’m fine.”

“If you fall down, I’m not carrying you.” Lance told him.

“Is anyone out there?” Keith asked.

“Huh?” Lance glanced over at him.

“Comms.” Keith said simply. Lance nodded and turned on his comm as well. “This is Keith, Lance and I landed on Earth. Does anybody read me?”

“Keith?” Pidge replied. “You’re okay!”

“Pidge! It’s so great to hear your voice – where are you?” Lance asked.

“I’m on Kerberos.” Pidge said. “I tried calling for somebody a while ago, I got in contact with Hunk, he’s on Earth too. I think he took off his helmet. He went to his own house.”

“Why would he do that?” Keith asked.

“It’s the same thing we’re doing.” Lance told him. “Pidge, can you get back to Earth?”

“I think so. Shiro isn’t responding, he must be too far away.”

“We’ll regroup here.” Keith said. “You and Hunk are going to have the best chance at building something to get us in contact with Allura and Shiro.”

“Which means you can actually sit down and rest for once.” Lance said.

“What happened, is he hurt?” Pidge asked.

“I’m right here!”

“Keith doesn’t know how to stay in his seat during a crash. We’re going to my house.”

“Where did you land?” Pidge asked.

“About 50 miles away from my house.”

“That’s… crazy.” Pidge said. “Hunk landed about that far from his house, too.”

“Then why didn’t I?” Keith asked.

“How should I know? I don’t know everything about destabilized wormholes.” Pidge huffed. “Me and Shiro didn’t land near our homes either. Just get to his place and relax for a while. I’ll meet up with Hunk, we’ll all regroup in a few days.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Keith said. 

“I’ll check in with you guys later. I need to do some minor repairs on my Lion and wait for her to wake up.” Pidge said. There was a short static sound and they logged off.

They kept walking. Keith did end up tripping over his own tired feet and Lance was barely able to grab hold to him before he could fall face first into the sand.

“I told you this would happen. You’re exhausted.” Lance scolded him. “Ugh, come on.” He pulled one of Keith’s arms over his shoulder. “We’re going at my pace now.”

Lance could only assume Keith’s half-hearted grunt was a victory for him and carried on. “You got pretty far before failing, I’m kind of impressed.” Lance said. Still no reply. He must be really tired. “So, is this better or worse than our last ‘bonding’ experience?”

That earned him a strained chuckle, almost like a cough, from Keith. “We’re both going to remember this one, so I think this is better.”

They walked for another few yards in silence. “Hey, quick question, how much Spanish do you know?”

“I – what?”

“I’m Cuban, my whole family speaks Spanish, a lot of my friends do too actually. They all speak English fluently, but they’d be impressed if you spoke Spanish, and they wouldn’t be able to talk behind your back in front of your face if you spoke it.”

“Oh. I don’t speak any Spanish.” Keith said. “I didn’t even know your family was Hispanic.”

“What did you think? That I was just really tan?”

“I guess I didn’t think anything. I never thought about it.”

Lance scoffed. “No surprise there.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nevermind.” Lance said quickly. “Just so you’re not surprised, I have a really big family. My aunt and uncle live with us, and their kids, their daughter is my age, her name is Brenda, and my older brother, Tomas, has a wife and kids so I have a niece and nephew running around too, they’re Maria and Freddy,”

“Lance, is this really important for me to know?”

“Of course it is! It’s my family, Keith.”

“I’ll just meet them and learn how to act from there.” Keith said. “We’re not going to stay there for long, are we? We need to contact everyone else, and to do that, we’ll need some high tech gear that we won’t find at your house.”

“Whatever. I don’t even care if they like you or not anyways. It’s not my problem.” Lance grumbled. 

They walked the rest of the way mostly in silence, interrupted by comments from Lance about his family and all the things he missed about Earth. Keith didn’t say anything, Lance figured he was pretty tired and beat up so he didn’t think much of it.

Finally, they reached the edge of a highway where Lance’s family could find him in a car. Lance helped Keith down into a sitting position under a tree and went to keep watch for any familiar faces driving familiar cars. He took off his helmet once he realized how strange he must look, a fully dressed Paladin of Voltron hitchhiking on Earth.

It took a little over 10 minutes for his brother to find them in his car. He was driving slowly down the road keeping an eye out for his baby brother and slammed on the breaks the second he saw Lance’s face.

“Tomas!” Lance yelled, running over to his brother who had gotten out of the car to do the same.

“I’m so happy you’re okay, Lance.” Tomas said, hugging him tightly. “Where have you been?”

“I’ll tell you everything later.” Lance pulled away from his brother and looked towards Keith. “Keith, you still awake?”

“Why would I fall asleep?” Keith shot back. “Help me up.”

“This is the famous Keith Kogane, right?” Tomas asked.

Lance stopped midstep as he headed over to Keith’s side. “Well – yes, but don’t even start talking about whatever it is you’re thinking about!” Lance said. 

“No comment, no comment.” Tomas said, putting his hands up in surrender.

Lance helped Keith to his feet and walked him back to the car. They both got into the back seat, which surprised Tomas, who expected Lance to sit next to him in the passenger seat. Keith lazily leaned against Lance. “Maybe I was quick to say we didn’t need a place to rest. I could really use a bed right about now.” Keith said.

“I still think you have a concussion, so try not to sleep just yet, okay?” Lance told him.

“And don’t even think about sleeping before dinner.” Tomas added. “That’s a personal insult in our family. Though I think the guests will make it hard to sleep.”

“Guests?” Lance asked. “What guests?”

“It took about 45 minutes to drive here, and then 45 minutes back, that’s plenty of time for all friends and family within the area to come over.” Tomas told him. “More cousins and your sister got a plane for tomorrow, and a whole lot more.”

“Just how much family do you have?” Keith asked him.

“So much, Keith. So much family.” He smiled. “This is so surreal, I never thought I’d get to see my family again.”

“Still waiting on that story, Lance.” Tomas said playfully. “Come on, we have time. At least explain that weird get up.”

“Nope!” Lance shook his head. “I’m going to have an audience at home, and that’s when I’ll tell the story. You’ve waited, man how long has it been?”

“Feels like a lifetime.” Tomas looked back at Lance in the rearview mirror and smiled softly. “I always knew I’d see you again, little brother.”

“I’m not easy to get rid of!” Lance said, and laughed. “But man, I thought the same sometimes. I can’t wait to get a hug from mom. I don’t even care if she smacks me first for worrying her.”

Keith ended up nodding off for a short nap while the brothers talked about what had happened on Earth in the past few months, and how much everyone missed him. Keith didn’t really want to listen to all of it, it made him feel a bit empty inside. Tomas said that Lance was never declared dead because their parents refused to believe he wouldn’t come home. Keith knew he wasn’t declared dead or even registered as missing. That would require having someone to care about him. He wondered what it was like to be Lance, to have so many people who loved him.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! if you liked it, tell me! if you didn't like it, also tell me. Constructive crit is always welcome.
> 
> also, I would like to have Spanish in upcoming chapters, but I'm not sure if I should **bold Spanish dialogue** or make an attempt and find someone who can help with actual Spanish. if you have any input, please tell me!
> 
> and thanks to my friend Ren for helpin out as my beta <3


End file.
